This week my ENG 100 classes have their final reading assignment--a government report on the state of student loan debt nationally. The report cites some staggering figures. About 2/3 of students who earn a Bachelor's degree take out student loans in order to pay for it, and the average amount of debt per student is roughly $25,000. I went to a rather expensive private liberal arts college for my B.A., but I did not graduate with quite that much debt. This was in large part due to a very generous scholarship the college offered me, which covered about 2/3 of my expenses. In other words, I was lucky--I mean, I worked hard to earn that scholarship, but still, I was lucky.
When I moved onto graduate school, I was not as lucky. For my first three semesters, the only financial aid I received was through federal loans. I needed these loans to cover tuition and living expenses. (I was teaching part-time, but that only brought in about $2,500 per semester.) For the remainder of my program, I was able to obtain funding (a tuition waiver and a modest stipend), but the damage was already done. I'm not going to broadcast the exact figure of how much I owe, but I will say that my monthly student loan payment is higher than my monthly car payment--and odds are, when my car dies some 100,000 miles from now, I'll still be paying back those student loans.
Was the debt worth it? For me, it was. I am currently a tenure-track, college English professor, which is exactly what I want to do with my life. If I hadn't taken out the loan, I probably couldn't have found another way to get here. But for others, I know, who have taken out similar loans, the results have been different. Jobs like mine are not plentiful these days, and many people with PhDs in English can only find part-time (poorly paid) employment, without benefits. It's such a big gamble to take on big-time debt when you're not sure what the job market will look like post-graduation.
I don't have any easy answers to offer my students on this topic, but I hope our discussion will get them thinking--if they're not already--about the challenges and risks that lie ahead as they contemplate where to go after DCCC and how to pay for it. I just hope none of them take out a variable interest rate loan from Citibank to pay for tuition at the University of Phoenix. From what I hear, I think that might be the worst possible decision.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
I Fixed the Lawnmower
For all my students who think writing is "just not their thing," here's a little tale of hope.
Tinkering with mechanical doohickeys is not my thing. When faced with the challenge I'm about to relate, I tried to think back and remember the last time I fixed anything that involved several moving parts. I couldn't come up with anything. I did put together a bicycle that I ordered in the mail around 2006 or 2007, but I did a horrible job of it. When I later brought it to a bike shop for a tune-up, I got laughed at.
Three weeks ago, Yuriko's father (Bob) was visiting from Maryland, and we were talking about how the grass needed mowing already because of the early spring. He asked if I had changed the oil in our little Troy-Bilt self-propelled mower. "You have to change the oil in a lawnmower?" I thought. I doubted that I was anywhere near 3,000 miles with the thing. But apparently changing the oil in a mower at least once a year is a good idea.
Bob, who is a semi-retired electrical engineer for NASA, is, as you might imagine, a vastly superior tinkerer. He showed me, step-by-step, how to take off the blade, drain the old oil, put in the fresh stuff, and put everything back together. He always does these things in a spirit of nonjudgmental helpfulness. Never do I get a hint of "If your not man enough to change the oil in this mower, how are you man enough to live with my daughter?" from him. I am grateful for this.
After Bob left, I started the mower up, and quickly there were 2 bad signs: smoke billowed out of the engine and the self-propulsion feature was not functioning. The smoke was not a big deal--apparently we put a little too much new oil in, but this quickly burned off. Why the mower wouldn't "go" when I asked it to, however, was a more perplexing and troubling question (especially for someone like myself with little to no mechanical intuition or experience).
After consulting Bob via email, I learned that the belt had likely come loose from the pulley while we changed the oil. After taking off the blade again, I could see this was the case. I could not, however, see how to access the front pulley to put the belt back on.
Bob sent me several emails of encouragement and advice over the next couple weeks, and finally--this past Sunday--I found the time to undo every bolt I could find until I could get at that front pulley. Eventually I got there, put the belt back on, and reassembled all parts. I was relieved there were no leftover bolts lying around. I was pretty convinced I would forget where something went.
The mower started up and moved right along--success! I felt quite a surge of pride, even though this was a pretty simple accomplishment. This is all to say that succeeding at something that you're not "naturally" good at can be a very empowering, rewarding experience.
Tinkering with mechanical doohickeys is not my thing. When faced with the challenge I'm about to relate, I tried to think back and remember the last time I fixed anything that involved several moving parts. I couldn't come up with anything. I did put together a bicycle that I ordered in the mail around 2006 or 2007, but I did a horrible job of it. When I later brought it to a bike shop for a tune-up, I got laughed at.
Three weeks ago, Yuriko's father (Bob) was visiting from Maryland, and we were talking about how the grass needed mowing already because of the early spring. He asked if I had changed the oil in our little Troy-Bilt self-propelled mower. "You have to change the oil in a lawnmower?" I thought. I doubted that I was anywhere near 3,000 miles with the thing. But apparently changing the oil in a mower at least once a year is a good idea.
Bob, who is a semi-retired electrical engineer for NASA, is, as you might imagine, a vastly superior tinkerer. He showed me, step-by-step, how to take off the blade, drain the old oil, put in the fresh stuff, and put everything back together. He always does these things in a spirit of nonjudgmental helpfulness. Never do I get a hint of "If your not man enough to change the oil in this mower, how are you man enough to live with my daughter?" from him. I am grateful for this.
After Bob left, I started the mower up, and quickly there were 2 bad signs: smoke billowed out of the engine and the self-propulsion feature was not functioning. The smoke was not a big deal--apparently we put a little too much new oil in, but this quickly burned off. Why the mower wouldn't "go" when I asked it to, however, was a more perplexing and troubling question (especially for someone like myself with little to no mechanical intuition or experience).
After consulting Bob via email, I learned that the belt had likely come loose from the pulley while we changed the oil. After taking off the blade again, I could see this was the case. I could not, however, see how to access the front pulley to put the belt back on.
Bob sent me several emails of encouragement and advice over the next couple weeks, and finally--this past Sunday--I found the time to undo every bolt I could find until I could get at that front pulley. Eventually I got there, put the belt back on, and reassembled all parts. I was relieved there were no leftover bolts lying around. I was pretty convinced I would forget where something went.
The mower started up and moved right along--success! I felt quite a surge of pride, even though this was a pretty simple accomplishment. This is all to say that succeeding at something that you're not "naturally" good at can be a very empowering, rewarding experience.
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